Please help. I’m about to throw my Freesub pneumatic mug press out the window!

[PaulWong]

Hello to all

This is my first post on your forum. I am a self employed graphic designer who decided a few months ago to add a bit of extra revenue to my business through selling mugs, primarily to my commercial customers but I also planned to sell online to the public too. It seemed like a relatively small investment and fairly simple to do (stop laughing!), so I thought why not give it a go?


After a fair amount of research I decided to purchase:


Freesub pneumatic mug press
Ricoh SG3110DN printer
Sawgrass SubliJet inks
Jet Stream dye sublimation paper


The first Freesub pneumatic mug press I purchase was from a company on eBay back in February. The press arrived, I excitedly plugged it in and hay presto… it didn’t heat up past 14c.


After sending that pile of s%*t back to the eBay company I thought ‘maybe if I purchased one from a reputable seller then I would have more luck’. So I ordered from Dye Sublimation Supplies in Carlisle. My new press arrives, I turn it on, it heats up, all is looking good.


Now I had read that there would be some trial and error to get the press working correctly, but the amount of “testing” I have done is now getting beyond a joke. I have now gone through 50 mugs and it still isn’t working properly. It doesn’t seam to matter what heat/time/pressure I try, the results are blurry patches on every mug.


To be fair to Dye Sublimation Supplies they have been really helpful. They’ve even recalled the machine to test it. I received the press back from them a couple of days ago along with a test mug they produced which looks perfect. But the next dozen mugs I printed had the same blurry result.


Could anyone please give me some insight into what maybe causing these blurry patches?


I know I should contact my supplier again for more advice but it’s getting a bit embarrassing now asking them for help.

Thanks in advance!

[UK Printed Mugs]

Did they use exactly the same mug as you had bought? One issue could be cheap coating on your mugs whereas they may of used higher quality coated mug.

[PaulWong]

Did they use exactly the same mug as you had bought? One issue could be cheap coating on your mugs whereas they may of used higher quality coated mug.

I have tried 2 different batches of mugs. First was a cheap lot from eBay and the second from Dye Sublimation Supplies. Both are getting the same results.

[UK Printed Mugs]

Could still be mug. I would find out which mug and coating they used, the temp/duration and which paper. Jet Stream in our tests isn't very good so try alternative (IE trupix).

[Paul]

practice, practice and practice. can you show us your mug?

[ukuwi]

Do you warm your mugs before printing and do you tape your images to your mugs , but my first thought would be mug coating too


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[Andrew]

Take some photos of the mugs and post here as blurry patches can be a few different things. Knowing which way to go on pressure, time and temp is all down to being able to recognise the fault type on the printed mug. It is fairly easy to sort once you know what you are looking for. Always stay away from non recognised suppliers when starting out. If you want to try ebay cheapie wait until you know what you are doing.

I find Jetstream a good paper and better than the likes of Xpres paper which is another good mid level paper which we previously used. I think I am the only one who is not impressed with Trupix. I find Texprint has the highest release of colour. Might be setup has different results.

[Mugalugs]

When starting it is so easy to go through a Box of Mugs just with trial and error getting pressure and times and colours right etc. Get a box of cheapies and practise...As you do each mug/s write down a sticky of time and heat etc and make sure it goes on the correct batch ..Eventually you'll find your Golden Grail

[ukuwi]

Please correct me if I am wrong as I don't have a lot of experience in these matters, but I had the impression that most papers will produce satisfactory results if you have all your setting correct, meaning icc profile specifically for that paper and ink, quality mug coating, correct time, heat and pressure on a decent quality mug press etc, like I have said in a previous post I get consistent poor results sublimating when using the so called quality branded papers, whereas most on here swear by then, yet get consistent excellent results with cheap chinese branded paper costing half as much, which has led me to the conclusion that settings are far more important than the paper, I am sure if I was to set up my system to use these high grade papers then I too would get great results from them, but at twice the price I see no point, am I missing something here?

[UK Printed Mugs]

Paper very important. Lots of threads on here about paper (especially Jet Stream which as I have said is something that failed our trials) so have a search about. If your supplier sent you a mug using your press that is perfect then the obvious thing to do is talk with them about their set-up. That should resolve your issue within minutes.